URLs du Jour

After the Senate voted 50 to 48 to confirm Justice Brett M.
Kavanaugh, Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted
that she was “not going to sugarcoat anything. We lost a tough
fight. And it hurts. What happened today will touch every single
person in this country, in some very real & terrible ways. But
it’s OK to step back for a minute, take a breath, & lean on the
shoulder of someone you love.”

Oh, please. For those who were awaiting the permission of a U.S. senator to lean on a shoulder, you are authorized to proceed. For the rest of us, yes, let’s take a breath. If a Supreme Court justice whose nominal job is to apply laws to specific cases is touching “every single person in this country, in some very real & terrible ways,” then we have bigger constitutional problems.

As I type,
Election Betting Odds
has Senator Warren with an 8.0% probability of being our next
US president. Which is way too high for comfort.
If she thinks her duty as a mere senator is to
direct the shoulder-leanings of the American citizenry, what will
she think the Presidency will allow her to do?

When modern Democrats talk about prese[r]ving “norms,” traditions,” or even the “Constitution,” they’re really talking about preserving their preferred policies. We know this because “liberals” have shown themselves not only willing to destroy the legitimacy of institutions like the presidency, the Senate ,and Supreme Court to protect those policies, they’re willing to break down basic norms of civility, as well.

Take the example of Hillary Clinton. In the very first sentence in her new scaremongering essay, which makes the case that America’s “democratic institutions and traditions are under siege,” she attacks our democratic institutions and traditions. “It’s been nearly two years since Donald Trump won enough Electoral College votes to become president of the United States,” the piece begins.

The intimation, of course, widely shared by the mainstream left, is that Trump isn’t a legitimate president even though he won the election in the exact same way every other president in U.S. history has ever won election. According to our long-held democratic institutions and traditions, you become president through the Electoral College, not the non-existent popular vote.

Senator Susan Collins (R., Maine) expressed frustration with Planned
Parenthood on Sunday, accusing the group of a double standard when
it comes to Supreme Court nominees.

“I would note that Planned Parenthood opposed three pro-choice
justices just because they were nominated by Republican presidents:
David Souter, Sandra Day O’Connor and Justice Kennedy,” Collins
said, recalling the organization’s opposition to Justice Anthony
Kennedy.

“They said the same thing: Women will die. This is just outrageous.”

Senator Susan Collins, inexplicably, said she was still in favor of
sending tax dollars to Planned Parenthood.

Last week The New York Times released a major investigative report into President Donald Trump's personal finances. The story, which took over a year to produce and relied on a massive trove of confidential documents, describes the accumulation of the Trump family's real estate fortune and the mechanisms that Trump's father, Fred C. Trump, used to pass wealth on to his children, with Trump receiving an outsized share. The story is relevant because the president's refusal to release his tax returns has left the public with few detailed glimpses into his financial dealings.

The report makes a strong case that Trump's public claims to being wealthy as a result of his business acumen ("I built what I built myself") are a myth created by Trump and abetted by allies in the media.

The details may be newly-revealed, but the general idea shouldn't
be shocking news. Back in
June
2015, we quoted Kevin D. Williamson's description of Trump as
"the self-made man who started with nothing but a modest portfolio
of 27,000 New York City properties acquired by his millionaire
slumlord father".

“We’re number two” just doesn’t sound right, does it? New
Hampshire placed second in the latest version of [the Cato
Institute] study, Freedom
in the 50 States, and we’ve gotten some flak for it. So why is the
Live Free or Die state not number one?

Jason and Will break down the good news and bad for NH liberty
found in
Freedom in the 50
States. (Which, yes I know, I've linked to before.)

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